"I was wounded by crafters?" D'Artagnan asked, shocked.

"Good crafters," Porthos said, in the tone of someone who thought this ought to console the young Gascon.

"But why?" Aramis said. He was sure he would think more clearly once his headache was gone, but all he could do for now was to walk step-by-step past each of the hurdles in his way. "Why would Pierre Langelier choose to not let us investigate?"

"Well, your story and Porthos's too told us that. He was a gambler, and deep in debt. This was never about his rivalry with Mousqueton, and only glancingly was it about Hermengarde's pregnancy. It was all about his need for money. What Mousqueton said he remembered last, about-you know-the armorer saying he would disinherit his son. I don't think this conversation was the sort that happened in front of the whole workshop. So, I presume it was just Monsieur Langelier and Mousqueton talking. And because Monsieur Langelier was probably repeating threats he'd made many times in person, he did not stop as his son came into the workshop. That his son was carrying a sword would occasion no shock, either. He probably, I think, hit Mousqueton on the head with the hilt, then ran his father through before he could reach for a sword himself. Possibly, before he felt any real alarm."

He shook his head. "The thing is, you see, that if he had hit him with a hammer, he might very easily have killed him without meaning to. The hilt of a sword is more controllable."

"And we should have known it from the beginning, because who else could have told the guards of the Cardinal that the hammer must have fallen on Mousqueton's head, and been believed. The fact is that anyone else would have prompted the guards to look up, and at least see if there were hammers hanging. But the new owner of the place . . ." Porthos said, opening his huge hands.

"And Hermengarde?" Aramis asked, his headache forgotten in the wave of curiosity. "Why would he kill her?"

"Oh, you told us that yourself. Because he has another girl, whom he also impregnated."

"But . . . if he impregnated them both, why would he prefer the other? And why kill Hermengarde?"

"First," Porthos said, counting on his huge fingers, "because Hermengarde was a living danger to him. At any moment, she could have told us of her relationship with him, and then we might have thought that perhaps he was the one attacking us. Second, because the other girl was more sure of carrying a child of his siring. And third, because the other girl brought him money, which made it easier for him to pay off his debts and not sell his business."

"Admirably put," Athos said.

"The question remains," Aramis said, "why would they ambush me when I came back from the country?"

"I would guess they had heard of your prowling about the night before," Porthos said, "and were waiting for you to return. Only someone who had heard of your being around the workshop, and desirous to prevent your return, would set a watch there-which to some extent exonerates other suspects."

"So this has nothing to do with a conspiracy against the Cardinal?" Aramis said. "Or the King?"

"No," Athos said. "I think that was all-"

"I wouldn't dismiss it so quickly," Porthos said. "First because the Cardinal honored his side of the pledge and is keeping Mousqueton in some relative comfort at the Bastille. Second because there is some mightily smokey intrigue happening. What, with the d.u.c.h.ess writing to the illegitimate brother of the King, and what with milady trying to kill us, and having obtained permission from the Cardinal by promising to do something. I wouldn't consider this a total impossibility yet, but . . . I would say it has nothing to do with this crime."

"So you're saying," Aramis said, "that while I was being hit on the head and taken for a long, slow ride into the country, it was because Langelier, who was supposed to be the one hit and kidnapped, had gone to kill Hermengarde?"

"I'm afraid so," Porthos said.

"It's infamous," Aramis said. "Does this villain truly look that much like me?"

Porthos narrowed his eyes at Aramis. "Only from the back, or perhaps from a distance. His hair is yellower, and his shoulders are a little broader, and his features are considerably coa.r.s.er. Besides, though I believe he is a flashy dresser, he is not, in any sense a good dresser, like you are, my dear Aramis. His suits are of cheaper material and cheaper cut."

Aramis, realizing that Porthos was trying to soothe him, and also very afraid that the word inscrutable would make an appearance, sighed, as his headache returned. "Well, at least we know. Although we could never have a hope of proving it."

"No," Porthos said, just as gloomily. "If only we had someone who had seen something and who could say . . ."

"What if we had someone who says he's seen something?" Athos said, suddenly.

"Someone?" Aramis asked.

"Some lady, an inmate of the palace, who claims they've seen the murder of Hermengarde up close," he said. "And who is willing to confront Langelier and pretend to blackmail him, while we wait right by, and intervene when needed. We'd have to have witnesses, of course . . ."

"Don't even think on it," D'Artagnan said. "I mean to make peace with Constance as soon as possible, and I'm sure she's very brave and she would gladly offer to help, but the truth is, my friends, she is a delicate lady, gently nurtured and-"

"I know a lady who would delight in it," Athos said. "She lives for danger and madcap defiance of odds."

"You do?" Aramis asked, looking at him, at the same time that the other two echoed him, and D'Artagnan continued, "You know a lady?"

"Well," Athos said, and smiled a little, with his old irony. "Certainly that can't be any stranger than Aramis knowing a man." And without giving them time to realize he'd made a joke, "The d.u.c.h.ess de Chevreuse would, I'm sure, lend herself to our schemes. If only Aramis asks her nicely. And you see, because she knows Aramis so well, if Pierre Langelier tried to tell her she'd mistaken them one for the other . . ."

"Her denial would carry force," Aramis said. "By the Ma.s.s, Athos, I believe you are right! Get me writing paper," he said, to the room at large. "And a pen. And ink. I shall send her a note right away.

"Shouldn't you find out what you are supposed to tell her, first?" Athos asked, his voice vibrating with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Like . . . where she should meet us, and what we should do?"

"Not at the workshop," Porthos said. "Too many swords, and those hammers, and perhaps his friends too. We could never guarantee her safety."

"No," Athos said. "It must be someplace that he thinks he's utterly safe."

"I've got it," Aramis said, and his own shout set his head aching again.

Where His Musketeerness Discusses a Plan; The Advantages of Dealing with a Shifty Character

"SO you didn't talk to him that night?" Aramis asked. "Yesterday night? After we went back." He had tracked Marc's and Jean's farms-they were brothers-in-law, and their farms adjoined each other-after he'd found the place on the edge of town where they'd dropped off the oxcart. The family there, distant cousins of Marc's, had been able to direct him.

On horseback, and at his speed, he'd gotten there in an hour instead of ten, and now he stood by the black horse he'd borrowed from Monsieur de Treville's stables, and discussed the matter of their plan and their need of a place with the two rustics.

"Well, we talked to him, in fact, and he's supposed to marry Marie. We didn't tell him that we'd thought we'd put him a box," Jean said, looking sheepish.

"No, I imagine you didn't," Aramis said. And he didn't imagine that Pierre knew that part either, else he would not have had his friends waiting for Aramis-he would have sent someone to find what he'd learned from his acquaintances in the country. Or to kill him halfway home.

He looked at the two of them, in their smocks and clearly in the middle of their working day. Would they be able to understand him? They hadn't struck him as stupid. A little . . . different perhaps, but in no way worse than Porthos. Their curious approach to life, in any case, had probably saved his life.

Deciding, suddenly, he poured out the story to them, of how they'd realized it was Pierre's doing, and of what they proposed to do about it. After he was done, they were silent a long time, and then Jean looked at Marc, "I knew it. Or at least I suspicioned it all along, because, you know what Marie is like. She always falls for bad lots. Remember what she was like with that one-legged peddler."

Fascinating as the idea was, Aramis did not wish to pursue the case of the one-legged peddler. Instead, he said, seriously, "I know you'll think that I should, in fact, do my best to find one of his armed friends who would be willing to confess, but . . ."

"Oh, no, your musketeerness," Marc said. "That would be fatal, because it would tell Pierre you know. It would not at all do. After all, he owes them money. They wouldn't want him arrested till he can pay."

"But you want him to marry your sister," Aramis said. "Wouldn't that be the same situation?"

"Not at all," Jean said. "As your musketeerness knows, or you would not have come to us, would you? With us, as long as Marie marries him, she's all right, as far as her reputation is concerned. What happens afterward . . ." He shrugged. "In fact, if Pierre is the sort to go about murdering people, I'd much rather he doesn't stay around, after he marries Marie. What if he decided he could use my money too? I could be mortal in a tomb, before I knew what hit me. No, your musketeerness, you can count on our help."

"We'll bring him over," Marc said. "To discuss the details of the wedding, we'll say. And the settlements. Of course," he said, "we'd best have the priest on hand to marry them before you take him off to face justice. That of a certainty we must do."

Where Athos Courts Danger; And a Lady Takes Up Arms

ATHOS intercepted the lady as she came out of her carriage. He'd managed to do it by telling Aramis that he, more subtle and experienced at the nuances of such things, should keep an eye on the discussions within, with Pierre Langelier, who looked like a rather coa.r.s.er Aramis, sitting at the table and arguing that he needed far more money to take the hapless Marie for his wife.

Besides, Athos had told Aramis, quite mendaciously and remorselessly, Aramis was needed on hand in case one of the two farmers needed rea.s.surance and came through the door from the kitchen into the little pantry, where the musketeers hid behind vast jars that Athos presumed contained b.u.t.ter, but might very well contain wine.

And so, while Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan stayed in the pantry and followed the negotiations that were little more than delay tactics, Athos-whose anxious ears had picked up the faintest sound of wheels in the yard-went out to receive the lady.

She had driven in very quietly, so that the sound of her horse's hooves, the noise of the wheels, could be mistaken for nothing more than a carriage going by on the nearby road. But it was her carriage, with the De Chevreuse arms on the door. She descended from it, heavily cloaked, but in a cloak of cream satin, and when she threw the hood back from her head, her blond hair glimmered under the moonlight.

He bowed to her. "He is a murderer," he whispered. "But we will be in the pantry and ready to come to your rescue. I hope you're not afraid."

She turned her head up to look at him, her eyes glimmering insolently and shimmering with excitement. "If I told you I was afraid, would you kiss me for courage, Monsieur le Comte?"

He felt like a knot at his throat and managed a quickly stifled chuckle. "I'm not that brave," he said.

He escorted her to the door to the kitchen-not the door to the pantry, to which he hurried, to rejoin his friends.

When he got into the darkened pantry again, she had knocked and been admitted, and Marc was saying, "But I'm not sure I want you to marry our sister, at all. Not unless this lady is mistaken in her report."

"What report, what?" Pierre said, half rising from the table.

"That I saw you kill Hermengarde in the palace gardens," Marie Michon-for Athos could not doubt it was her, and not the more proper, or at least more socially conscious d.u.c.h.ess that stood there-said. "You asked her to meet you and then you ran her through with the sword."

"Bah," Pierre said, and an ugly flush came to his cheeks, and made him look very much not like Aramis. "And who will listen to you?"

"I think everyone," Marie Michon said, drawing herself up, and supplementing her scant inches with the force of her personality. "Do you know who I am?"

"A busybody?"

"No. I'll have you know I'm the d.u.c.h.ess de Chevreuse."

"Oh, I still say you are a fool of a woman, and that you saw wrong. Everyone knows it was the blond musketeer."

"No. Of a certainty it wasn't. The blond musketeer is a good friend of mine, and I'll be willing to swear to any magistrate that he was with me at the time."

Before she'd finished p.r.o.nouncing the words, Aramis had leapt forward and towards the kitchen and Athos, who had seen the same ugly glimmer in Pierre Langelier's eyes was racing him towards the man. But it was too late.

He wore a dagger. There had been no way of removing his dagger without making him suspicious. And now he'd grabbed the d.u.c.h.ess around the chest, and he had the dagger to her neck. "Very pretty, milady." He looked towards the musketeers. "But who will believe any of this, if you are dead?"

"There is Monsieur le Cure," Marc said, pointing towards the door, where a grey-haired man stood, looking rather shocked. "He has seen it, and people will perforce believe him."

Langelier looked wild, and stared around at the musketeers and at the priest. "Very well, but you'll never take me alive. Come with me, pretty lady. We're going to take a long ride through the country." And with a sneer, at the musketeers said, "Put up your swords, or I slit her throat."

Athos, who had been watching De Chevreuse's face as it flushed, and as her eyes shone with the unmistakable light of battle, wondered what she meant to do. Courting danger was not always a good characteristic. Sometimes danger might court back. He looked at the blade near the pale throat, and wished very much he was in her place.

And with a Moo and a Cackle and an Oink Oink There

ARAMIS saw Marie Michon-his Marie-looking defiant and madcap. Unfortunately Aramis knew his Marie well. He knew she looked like that when the dice were down and the play definitely against her.

He wanted to rise. He wanted to go to her rescue. She wasn't Violette. He wasn't madly in love with her, as he'd been with Violette. But she was a gallant and brave soul, and he'd brought her into this. It seemed ridiculous that after all her intrigues, all her adventures, she should succ.u.mb here, at the hands of a brutish murderer.

And then, looking around, to see if anyone else was in a position to help her, he realized that Marc was gone. The Devil, The Devil, he thought. he thought. I wonder where he has gone? I wonder where he has gone?

And then he heard a confused noise from behind him, in the yard, and realized that the door of the kitchen, into the outside yard, stood fully open. He had barely the time to look over his shoulder, as the noise grew deafening, and he was. .h.i.t, full in the back, by a charging pig, and, as he fell, a confused chicken hopped up on his head.

Around him bedlam reigned. It took him a moment to locate Marie Michon, but when he found her, he realized in the confusion she had somehow managed to overturn the situation and had a small, dainty knife firmly held to Pierre's throat. She'd somehow managed to make him drop his knife, and from the way his wrist hung, Aramis didn't think she'd done it with kindness. Now she told him in a stern voice, "And where were you going to take me, pig? You might enjoy going there, yourself."

Aramis smiled despite himself. Looking up, he met Athos's eyes, and was surprised to see him smiling as well.

Of course, their grins were nothing to Marc's and Jean's, whose expressions bordered on sheer, manic glee.

A Surfeit of Roasted Chicken; A Letter from a Lady

ATHOS looked down the expanse of his dining room table. Very rarely was Grimaud's insistence that they eat in the dining room justified as it was now. The table was, in fact, almost too crowded. In addition to his four friends, all four of their servants were present and sitting at the table. Though after Grimaud's arguments, they had decided to allow the servants to sit at the foot of the table.

And from Grimaud's glare, he would keep the others in place if it killed him.

The top of the table itself was entirely covered in roast chicken, ham, and a mult.i.tude of bottles of wine. The chicken and the ham were from the farmers. Jean and Marc had sworn that the chickens-about a dozen of them-had got badly trampled or burned in the hearth after being stampeded into the kitchen, and so, the only thing for them was to kill them, roast them and send them to the musketeers as a gift.

No one had explained why they'd also sent the ham-since it was cured and therefore at least weeks old-and the bread, but Athos, who had listened to the two of them go on, guessed they were quite likely to tell them that these had gotten trampled in the stampede, as well, and therefore must be put out of their misery. They lied with the same glib ease as Mousqueton, on whom the news of Hermengarde's death had fallen like a lead weight. He still looked teary and had that expression of a man whose hopes had come crashing around his head.

All he'd told Athos was, "You were always right, monsieur, women are the devil. I don't know which hurts more, that Langelier had to kill her so she wouldn't insist he marry her or . . . Or that she is dead. But it hurts all the same."

And Athos, knowing himself at risk, could do nothing but silently sympathize.

"It was a lovely wedding, though," Porthos said. "Even if the groom was tied up."

"And gagged," Aramis said. "Don't forget gagged. I had to rea.s.sure the bon cure bon cure that the man meant, indeed, to say yes." that the man meant, indeed, to say yes."

"Well, he scarcely had any other choice," D'Artagnan said, as he disposed of a full chicken, heaped on plate. "You pulled his hair so his head must perforce nod."

"I was only doing my duty, to preserve a poor lady from sin," Aramis said, piously.

"And the ways of the Lord are inscrutable," Porthos said.

"Besides," Aramis said, totally ignoring the proffered bait, "you have to agree there was something in the way of poetic justice, to bringing him back to Paris in a box and presenting him to the Cardinal all tied up."

Athos was about to open his mouth, to say that he wondered if the Cardinal still thought that Athos was working on his behalf, even now, and to remind them there was a good chance he'd already agreed to let Charlotte have her way with him, and that she would be an adversary to reckon with in the future. In fact, for all their present joy at having Mousqueton back, Athos wasn't sure that all-or any of them-could survive long enough to defeat the woman who had briefly been Countess de la Fere.

Before he could speak, there was a loud pounding on the door.